On the Subject of Mafia II

No idea who this is

I never played the first Mafia so I didn't really have a frame of reference for the sequel, but I played the demo and thought it was very pretty and seemed to be essentially a 40s/50s mob mod for GTA4, such were the similarities. And on the strength of that I pre-ordered the full game (see? demos work!).

Of course fans of the series (not to mention the developers) are quick to point out that M2 isn't supposed to be a GTA clone, that it's not a sandbox game and that any criticisms related to sandbox-style game play are meaningless. That is, of course, bollocks.

The engine is lovely. It's not really fair to compare the actual art direction of the game with GTA4, as the latter is intentionally stylised almost to the point of being a cartoon, and when you really look closely there's not much difference in the detail being rendered, at least in the locations. M2 does a very nice job of achieving a naturalistic, rich environment. It's not as large an area as Liberty City but there's a great deal more variety and a more organic design with better differentiation between neighbourhoods. There's day & night, as well as weather, but as far as I could tell it wasn't really dynamic. Like with the different seasons and eras you experience as the game progresses, everything seems pretty much locked for the duration of the current segment of the mission so that the narrative can begin and end at predefined times of day. The city does look good at night, though, with the streaky reflections of street lights in the road and glows on the lamps themselves. More surprisingly it actually runs pretty damned well, and much more smoothly than GTA4, certainly post-Episodes.

It wasn't all plain-sailing, however, as the first time I ran the full game (the demo had worked fine), it completely locked up my machine which then proceeded to blue-screen on the next reboot. Fortunately after I reinstalled the video drivers it started to behave itself. Then, from about half way through the missions, it started to CTD pretty much once per mission. Given the hit-or-miss auto-saving, that could be no big deal or a pain in the arse. It was odd that the early stages were pretty stable. I've read suggestions of memory leaks and the like, so it might be related to the time spent in-game.

The driving is worth a mention, especially given how much of it is involved. According to the stats, at the end of my run-through (which was mostly missions and little sight-seeing) I had driven 117 miles. More surprisingly I covered an additional 16 miles on foot. The driving attempts to be a little more physical than GTA's bumper cars, with the vehicles seemingly weighing about a thousand tons. The more advanced "physics" mode pretends to be more realistic, but one car chase in particular along a freeway felt more like Ridge Racer than GTR2. Mostly it's a bit more restrained and perilous than GTA which isn't a bad thing and works well in the more limited area available. The traffic AI is also better than GTA's, with non-player vehicles mostly managing to avoid you (and each other) and travelling at a fair old pace the rest of the time. The rozzers even chase other road users occasionally, which is nice. The rules of the road are supposed to be a bit stricter than in GTA, with the cops supposedly alert to speeding, running red lights and hit-and-runs, although a lot of the time they don't seem that bothered. Additionally M2 offers a speed limiter which seems to include other driver aids and works well for those times you just want to cruise around without attracting attention.

There's hand-to-hand combat which I found a little more streamlined and useful than in GTA, although it's mostly useful in a handful of pre-defined Fight Club-style encounters. While it's not exactly complex, I did think it would work well in The Witcher, which suffered from pretty lame punch-ups. Speaking of the unarmed combat, you mostly learn (and use) it during a chapter set during your character's time in prison. I was quietly impressed by that chapter, having expected a fade-to-black followed by a "10 years later..." title screen. Like all the other story-driven elements, it could have been longer and more involved. Instead it's mostly an excuse for a bit of the old chin pistons, along with a run-in with the inevitable old boss man who's living in luxury and running the joint.

While there's not a lot to say about the gun-play, it was by far the most entertaining thing you actually do in the game, although that's not saying much because apart from driving and walking and watching cutscenes (and the occasional fisticuffs) it's basically the only thing you actually do. A few different guns, satisfying head-shots, reasonable if not perfect cover system. Some nice set piece battles, but of course not enough. And one or two less impressive boss battles.

Ok, it's not supposed to be a sandbox game. The problem with that is if you disregard the sandbox elements, M2 doesn't really have a lot going for it. The plot, the excruciatingly-laboured dialogue and the characters so two-dimensional they're virtually transparent are all entirely worthless. Honestly there isn't a single likable character in the whole game, including you. It's an endless conveyor belt of mindless thugs, smug, smarmy bosses and wide-eyed, helpless victims. You could argue that it's a mob game so of course they're going to be unlikable, but it doesn't help me warm to the game when I want my own character to die. The worst was perhaps the goofy, hapless kid who starts hanging around wanting to play with the big boys. From the moment he showed up, I wanted to put a bullet in his head myself, (spoiler alert!) only for the (other) bad guys to beat me to it. He was from the JK Rowling school of characterisation where bumbling, facetious retards are supposed to be endearing rather than utterly infuriating. Joe, too, is seemingly supposed to be the dim-witted, fat drunk who makes you go "awwwwww" and want to pat him on the head every time you see him as if he's some sort of puppy. He ends up being an even less likable imitation of Roman from GTA4, and I fully expected him to call me up to suggest we go bowling.
At least the cutscenes are skippable, although with allegedly 2 hours of the fuckers there won't be much left if you do. There was also one phone conversation in particular where a bartender calls to get you to deal with a very drunk Roman Joe which was just interminable, with the bartender doing a particularly awful, over-wrought 50s jive immitation. And that wasn't skippable. As I read it described in a comment somewhere or other, the dialogue in general is "embarrassingly try-hard".
So ignore anyone who says the dialogue or characters or story are good. The voice-acting is passable, and the nice engine means the cutscenes themselves are pretty and polished, but in terms of narrative it was just third-rate, Godfather-wannabe shit. It reminded me of Graham Linehan's astute suggestion that games designers rarely read books and rely on movies as their only form of research.

My greatest criticism of the game doesn't concern the narrative. What bothered me more was the amount of time you spend doing inconsequential tasks compared with the time spent actually playing the game. As the Kotaku review described, in an average mission you will spend much longer driving to and from the objectives (not even in pursuits), and nodding off through countless cutscenes than you will shooting guido nonces in the face. There were innumerable occasions which seemed to involve nothing more than walking from one cutscene to the next. If I remember correctly there was even a whole chapter during which the only interaction involved 3 or 4 car journeys, plus the short walk to and from the car in each case. It's a shame because the gunfights, when they occur, are pretty good fun. It's also a shame because the narrow-minded disregard for the whole sandbox concept means there is essentially nothing to do outside of the missions, and there are only 15 of those.

When it comes to games it's not uncommon to have the technology fail to keep up with the ambitions of the game designers. Curiously M2 appears to have more than adequate technology, but the designers have suffered from what Richard Herring might describe as "a paucity of ambition". If it isn't a sandbox game, then that memo didn't get to the engine developers because this engine would be more than up to the job. It's a slightly tragic waste of potential really, although I suspect that at least some of that potential will magically be fulfilled as 2K start to milk the game with DLC in the future. DLC which some people have suggested was intended to be in the original game, but which was subsequently removed either due to time or budget constraints, or else at the behest of 2K who want to wring every possible last penny from the title.
I'm not about to fall for that trick, not least because DLC content implies more unbearable characters and endless dialogue to sit through, followed by 10 minutes of driving, followed by another cutscene, followed by 2 minutes of shooting, followed by more cutscenes, and another 10 minutes of driving to get home again. Just like every other fucking chapter.
On the other hand, there is the cheap and tawdry gimmick of dozens of classic editions of Playboy to collect throughout the game, including the associated centerfolds. You can't argue with big tits.